Wild Burn (21 page)

Moira wasn’t faking anything. Not now, hell, not ever, and he had to have more. Without lifting his busy mouth, he stripped her shirt from her shoulders, pulling it down her resistant arms until he could fling it to the floor. “You’re still in charge, honey, I promise, but I gotta see more of you,” he mumbled against the sharp line of her clavicle, nibbling his way up her throat as he ran his palms over her naked arms. “Let me?”

“Anything.” She scrabbled at the buttons of his shirt, tearing and ripping as she revealed the cotton undershirt beneath. “Too many layers.”

“Let me,” he repeated, but this time the words were soothing, and he gently pushed aside her hands, leaning away to shrug off his braces, followed by the gray buttoned shirt. He yanked the undershirt over his head, leaving himself bare from the waist up.

“Delaney.” Her voice, husky and lilting, was laced with wonder as her hands reached for his sides. Wonder, and worry.

Which was when he remembered the tattoos. Covering his ribs on either side of his torso were dark hash marks in groups of five. His right side bore seventy-one. His left, fifty-four.

Her thumbs stroked over the marks, and her touch uncoiled something in his chest, something tense and hot and anxious, and he was able to loose the breath that had unexpectedly clogged his throat at Moira’s initial perusal. “It’s nothing.”

“Those are not nothing. Those are purposeful.” She said it so succinctly, then lifted her beseeching eyes to meet his gaze. “I want to know.”

He brought his hands up to her face and drew her to him for an equally beseeching kiss. “Can I tell you later?”

“No.” But her lips parted for him nonetheless, and her hands settled on his shoulders, skin to skin as she dug her fingertips into the taut muscles there. She shifted her body closer until the cool, pebbled tips of her breasts brushed tantalizingly against his bare chest, and they both gasped at the scandalous sensation. He’d forgotten how wonderful that first naked touch between frantic bodies was, when heartbeats pounded madly and chests rose and fell with uneven breaths, but for some reason it was so much more intoxicating experiencing that unique first with Moira.

“Tell me now.” Her nails scored the sides of his neck, and for a moment he was confused. What did she want to hear, how he felt about her? Because he could tell her that. He could say— But her hands drifted down over his chest and stomach to stray to his marked ribs once more, and he remembered what words she wanted from him.

He’d almost rather give her that other, decidedly more dangerous confession.

He tipped his forehead to hers. “Right side’s for the men I lost during Sherman’s March,” he explained quietly. “Left for the war dogs I’ve killed.”

“Like…like a trophy?”

He lifted his head to stare at her intently. “Like an accounting. War creates imbalance, Moira. And this, somehow, it…it evens the scales.”

“But one has nothing to do with the other.” Her fingers pet the ridges of smooth muscle she found stretched over his ribs, drifted down to play over his defined abdomen. “Indians didn’t kill your men. Union soldiers did.”

“Never said it was logical.” He meant to quash her questioning there, but she leaned forward, bending her head to press her lips to his overheated cheekbone, and his insides quivered.

“It started as revenge,” he blurted out, closing his eyes against the continued feel of her mouth as it traversed the angles of his face. He refused to be ashamed of the way he clutched her closer, having wrapped one arm around her waist and slid the other into the heavy red strands above her nape. As he spoke, he used the backs of his knuckles to unthread the thick plaits of her braid. “Yankees burned my family’s plantation to the ground, sent my father to his grave, and I went searching for them that did it. Problem was, when I found ’em, they were under attack from a band of dog soldiers.”

“And you defended them.” She tilted her head as his fingers massaged her scalp. Her hair spilled haphazardly down her back and over the arm banding her waist, a cool waterfall of raw auburn silk, and he could do little except gape at her momentarily. Her body was so relaxed and warm in the circle of his arms, as if she’d already been sated, as if her trust in him was a given, totally implicit.

Her trust shook him, and it took him several long, trying moments until he found his voice again. “I did. Didn’t mean to, but it happened, and when it was over, they brought me before their commanding officer—to receive a commendation. I refused. Then another bigwig got involved, some legal type from the capitol, and they offered me money to do what I’d just done. A lot of money.”

When she lowered her chin, her gaze was heavy-lidded, seductive, and he knew it had nothing to do with his confession and everything to do with his hands on her body. “And here you are,” she murmured, the same way she might have said
and they lived happily ever after
.

“More or less.” Having humored her far longer and more verbosely than he’d intended, Del flipped her to her back on the mattress in one swift motion. “We’re done talking about this.”

A small, secret half smile curved her pink lips. “For tonight,” she said, and he couldn’t help but kiss away that teasing smile, the smile that seemed to know he would acquiesce to answer whatever questions she posed of him, even if he didn’t want to, and it was maddening, wasn’t it? The power she had over him. She knew her power too, because it was all there, laid out in that affectionately taunting smile of hers.

His lips urged hers apart, his fingers tangling in the lacing of her corset as he fought to remove the restrictive garment from her pliant body. Her tongue met his eagerly, tasting him, and he fumbled with the hooks over her sternum as he lost the presence of mind to speak, to seduce.

No, this seduction was all hers, whether she meant it as such or not. She opened for him, arms and legs and adventurous soul, with enthusiasm. He tugged open the corset and yanked her thin shift down to her waist. She wriggled as her arms were pinned by the lacy shoulder straps, but she didn’t struggle to escape—instead, he heard the thunk of her boots being toed off, felt the writhing of her legs trapped between his knees while slithering out of her stockings. Pulling her arms free, she looped them around his shoulders, holding him to her as she rubbed her lips across his again and again and again, in slow, languorous caresses of wet heat. Blindly, he managed to find the closure of her skirt and maneuver it, the underskirt, and the shift over her hips and down her legs, letting it pool at her feet as they dangled off the edge of the bed.

His thumbs discovered the waistband of her drawers and the satiny skin of her belly above them, and he sensed her low moan the moment before it reached his ears. “Take them off,” she commanded in a whisper, hips squirming beneath his hold.

“
Christ.
” The thatch of rich red curls between her slender thighs, framed by delicately jutting hipbones and accented with a generous smattering of freckles across her milky skin, was the most erotic sight he’d ever seen, and any teasing urges remaining inside him faded away in the space of an instant. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think—all he knew was that he was hungry for her, his body starving, and he would die right here, right now, if he didn’t get inside her in the next ten seconds.

But instead of lunging for her, Del cupped her with a shaking hand, his fingers immediately finding her heated crease and parting her. He watched his fingers as they curved over her mound, chest heaving as slick moisture gathered on his blunt, rough-edged fingertips, breath catching when her soft thighs spread wide for his explorations. She whimpered, and he couldn’t stop himself from groaning, nor could he tear his gaze from her sweet pussy. As he slipped his middle finger into her grasping sheath, he choked. “Fuck.”

Her hands clutched at his upper arms. “Y-you make me feel…”

He glanced up at her, saw the way she was biting her lower lip and the tortured frown between her closed eyes. “What do I make you feel, honey?” he prompted in a low voice, unable to look away from her beautiful face, and he rubbed the heel of his palm against the hard bud of her clitoris.

Her body went wire taut, arching like a hunter’s bow as she gasped for him. “Unbalanced.”

A rush of wetness eased the passage of the second finger he slowly fed into her, and he grinned as he pumped his hand, just the tiniest bit. “Unbalanced?”

She nodded vehemently as she lifted her hips to meet the thrust of his fingers. “Insane. P-positively mad.” She opened bleary, lust-hazed eyes to spear him with vibrant blue. “What are you doing to me?”

He captured her mouth in a heavy, drugging kiss, using his free hand to undo the placket of his trousers. “Loving you,” he whispered against her lips. He stroked his fingers inside her, shuddering along with her as she clenched once, tellingly, around him. “Just loving you, Moira.” He managed to free himself and gripped his hard length—God, he was so fucking hard—settling his hips in the welcoming cradle of her thighs.

He trailed kisses down her throat, across the uneven rise and fall of her chest, until his lips found a hard, berried nipple. Withdrawing, he slid his hand—still slick with her arousal—around her nape as she shifted frantically beneath him. He caught her nipple lightly between his teeth. “Do you wanna be on top?” He’d let her do whatever she wanted, have him any way that she liked. This was as much for her as it was for him.

“I…” She shook her head. “I just feel so empty.” Her fingers clutched at his hair, and she dragged his head from her breast until she could stare up into his face.

“I’ll fill you, honey.” The head of his cock nudged her entrance, and she was so small, so tight. The hand at her nape squeezed gently, and he stroked his free hand over the top of her smooth thigh, settling it above his hip. “I won’t hurt you,” he promised fervently, tenderly, lowering his mouth to kiss her again. “I’ll never hurt you.”
I love you
.

He loved her.

As she wrapped her arms around his neck, responding warmly to his kiss, he slid with inexorable slowness into her wet core. They both gasped as he stretched her, filled her, as she took him in so willingly and so perfectly. “Del,” she moaned.

“You feel so good. Jesus.” He matched his hips to hers in a swift, finite thrust, planting his forearms on either side of her head.

She hooked her other leg around his waist and huffed out a soft laugh. “Jesus has nothin’ to do with this,” she murmured, the rolling lilt pronounced in her breathless voice.

Smiling against her cheek, he moved within her, unsteady but determined as he showed her with his body how much he desired her. How much he loved her. She was tight and hot and slick around him, and every decisive thrust into her delivered them both that much higher, that much further, into the desperation she wanted.

Then he couldn’t smile, and she couldn’t laugh, and they sighed and groaned together as sweat dripped into his beard and the fine sheen of perspiration dampened the auburn strands at her temples. His chest tightened painfully as he took her mouth in a scorching kiss, his tongue delving and tasting, dancing and mating with hers in a rhythmic mimic of his hardness inside her.

He wanted to tell her she was perfect. He wanted to tell her everything—his past, his heart, his hopes for their future. Because he had hopes. With every thrust, those hopes expanded and grew, until she was crying out and clamping around him, demanding he fill her in that final way, and he gave in without thought, capitulating at the command of her body as he stiffened and spilled within her.

He collapsed atop her, his head coming to rest in the valley between her small breasts. He squeezed his eyes shut, feeling her fingers pet through the tangled mess of his hair, and he slid his arms around her and rolled them to their sides. Their limbs tangled as he held her against him, refusing to lose their intimate connection and pressing gentle, open-mouthed kisses along the warm, freckled skin of her shoulder.

He should tell her. He should tell her how much he loved her, even though they’d only known each other such a short time, and he would ask her to marry him. He could build them a house on the other side of town, whitewashed and square, and he’d give her that happy yellow front door she deserved. He—

“Del?”

His heart lodged in his throat. “Yeah, honey?”

“That was wonderful.” She brushed her lips over his temple and snuggled closer.

He swallowed, hard. “It was.” It was so much more than wonderful, really.

“But you didn’t remove your trousers.”

Suddenly, it was much easier to breathe, and he laughed wryly against the side of her throat. “Next time, I’ll manage to get them off, I swear.”

“There’ll be a next time?”

He clutched her to him, a new kind of desperation coursing through his veins. “Yes.” God willing, there’d be thousands of next times for him with her. “Yes, there will.”

Her voice was slumberous when she said, “Good.” Seconds later, she’d fallen asleep curled around him, and he held her protectively, possessively, until the first gray-and-coral streaks of dawn filtered weakly through her curtained windows.

And then he left.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Tuesday morning broke cloudy and cold in the mountain town of Red Creek, and Moira’s mood matched the gloomy weather.

Two very long days had passed since her interlude with Delaney, during which time she’d had the opportunity to experience a wide range of emotions and contemplate any number of nerve-wracking worries. But this morning, she was going to straighten her spine and march over to the boardinghouse, right up the stairs in front of Mrs. Yates and all assembled, and she was going to knock on door number eight and remind the errant Captain Crawford of his promise to take her into Denver today. She certainly wasn’t going to take the sheriff up on his snide, halfhearted offer.

She wanted to see her lover, damn it.

Even now, as she stood before the washstand in her cabin and checked her coiffure in the hanging mirror—after having adjusted the sleek strands over her notched ear—she shivered at the mere thought of the word.
Lover.
It had such a delicious ring to it, naughty and dangerous, and she’d hated waking on Sunday to find the bed cold and herself alone.